Microplastics are everywhere: they even grow inside plants. We even find them in the placenta of mothers before childbirth. And that's not all.
Today the terrible, tiny plastic particles from bottles and other waste they fall upon us from the sky after degrading into microplastics in the oceans.
A new study in the journal Science found that over 14 months, more than 1.000 tons of microplastic particles fall each year in 11 protected areas in the western United States, the equivalent of more than 120 million plastic water bottles.
Plastic rains: incredible indifference
Craig Bennett, CEO of The Wildlife Trusts, said the world is not yet taking the microplastics crisis seriously, but if we don't stop using this material, it will have huge implications for human health.
We will take this as seriously as we did with fossil fuels and acid rain. The real story we'll be talking about in five to 10 years is the impact of plastic and particularly micro plastics on human health
Craig Bennett
We have seen heartbreaking images of our tortured nature around. Turtles suffocated by bags, whales with tons of plastic in their bodies. A beautiful, recent project, "Moai + Plastic”, Tells of an Easter island (the famous Rapa Nui from the film) invaded by another island, the plastic one in the ocean.
Yet, apart from this and the denunciation of some sites, the impact of plastic rains that even fall on us from the sky and enter our food chain has not yet been explored.
We pay today for the choices of 70 years ago
of wildlife pointed out that although we have seen “images of turtles drowning in the sea because they have eaten plastic bags”, the impact of the plastic that rains on us and entering our food chain has not been extensively explored.
The problems we're seeing now are materials that have been put into the environment over the last 50, 60, or 70 years. In the last 10 years, however, single-use plastic has seen a literal explosion, and we will realize it before long.
Measures taken by many countries have reduced the problem of acid rain and chemicals can be removed from soil and buildings. Plastic rains are much worse, because their impact cannot be easily reduced: there is currently no real way to filter microplastics from the soil.
